Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

18th October 1659

A few days before operations in Dutch Indonesia restarted

Deputy Director of Bharatiya External Pragya, Southeast Asia Branch, Jalandhar Keshav, held an important meeting with Vijay in Visakhapatnam.

"Your Majesty, the conditions have gotten better. Should we restart the operations?" Jalandhar Keshav asked with anticipation.

Vijay leaned back into his chair and thought for a while. "What's the situation with the Dutch?" he inquired.

Jalandhar immediately responded, "Merchant and supply vessels going for Indonesia through the Indian Ocean have almost been completely eliminated as the Bharatiya Navy has completely blocked off entry into the Malacca Strait."

"All the supplies from the Dutch mainland have fully stopped. And, Your Majesty," he had a knowing smile on his face, "Indonesia does not have weapons manufacturing capabilities, so the resistance they can put up without support from the Dutch mainland is minimal."

Vijay felt very happy hearing the news, but he suddenly remembered something. "Didn't the Dutch somehow manage to smuggle a few Generation II and Generation I machine tools? Although they cannot produce military-issue Dutch weapons, they should still be able to manufacture simplified weapons, don't they?" Vijay had gotten to know about this news in an intelligence report a few months ago before the Naval Net Operation took place, but although he was immediately furious when he received the news, he eventually calmed down as he realized that there was absolutely no way the machine tool could be kept under wraps for so long, especially since it was being sold to industrial enterprises as a crucial tool for manufacturing.

Jalandhar Keshav understood the doubt of His Majesty and shook his head. "If you are worried about the Dutch independently starting a military industry chain within the Indonesian archipelago, then you don't have to worry, Your Majesty," he smiled as he explained. "The entire reason why machine tools were smuggled to the Indonesian archipelago was to exploit it more efficiently. It was in order to dig the minerals, harvest the crops, and process the goods that were being sent back more efficiently, and not to manufacture military products."

"Oh?" Vijay felt the matter was very interesting. 'Didn't the Dutch want to keep the Indonesian archipelago for themselves? Why didn't they develop its military enterprises then?' he asked himself, unable to make sense of Henry Casimir's decision.

Jalandhar could see the confusion in His Majesty's expression, but what could he say? The decisions taken by the Dutch were truly something worth teaching in the military academy as a negative example.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He shrugged and explained, "As far as I can make sense, Your Majesty, it is my opinion that the Dutch were pretty startled during the first rebellion attempted a year ago."

"I guess they didn't want the rebels to seize military industries once a similar situation occurred."

Vijay nodded in understanding. Although he still thought the strategy of the Dutch was very stupid, he could somehow understand where they were coming from.

In his past life, the British did something very similar with India. By the time the British arrived in India, it was the most industrialized country in the world, producing nearly 30% of the world's GDP. This was a mind-boggling metric, especially since India was not as gold-rich as everyone was led to believe. The whole GDP was earned by the industries of India, which exported goods to many parts of the world.

The first thing the British did when they conquered India was to completely cripple the native industries and transfer their capabilities back to the mainland. In such a way, the British de-industrialized Bharat and industrialized themselves, turning India from the richest country in the world at one point into the world's biggest warehouse.

The British naturally did such a thing for many causes, including not seeing Indians as their equals and as lesser beings, but one of the most prominent reasons was that the British were afraid of riots in their colony, which had industrial capabilities.

Industry may be the biggest tool for the productivity of mankind, but it is also the main component of war. Any industrial factory, no matter how civilian in nature, could be transformed into a military enterprise capable of producing parts for military weapons within a few weeks.

Henry Casimir might have thought that starting military enterprises in Dutch Indonesia was as good as losing the colony to the rebels.

With everything considered, Vijay finally came to a decision. "Let's start the operation and suffocate the Dutch permanently," he said, clenching his fist. If the Dutch had used the smuggled machine tools to produce military weapons, he would be more cautious, but since no such thing was happening, he need not be conservative.

Jalandhar Keshav smiled. "As you command, Your Majesty, I will bring you the news of victory no matter the cost." He stood up and pounded his chest as he promised. Dutch Indonesia was the biggest failure in his career. He had succeeded in operating the Philippines, Sulawesi, and even more recently Timor, but Indonesia had always been his major failure, for which he blamed himself quite a lot.

Now that he's got a second chance and such favorable conditions, if he still fails, he might as well quit his job and become a rice farmer in the countryside.

Vijay nodded in appreciation. "I remember it was an agent called Jaideep who operated the last Indonesian rebellion. Although the situation was stacked against him, he did a very good job considering that he almost Succeeded."

"So let him operate in Indonesia this time as well," Vijay said.

Jalandhar was surprised that His Majesty remembered Jaideep, but he was very happy for his subordinate since he knew Jaideep had taken the failure more to heart than himself.

"I thank you on behalf of Jaideep, Your Majesty. I will convey your orders right away, but," he thought his words carefully so as not to cause misunderstandings and said, "Your Majesty, I think there should be at least three senior agents operating for this operation."

Enjoy new adventures from empire

Vijay looked at Jalandhar intently. "Explain."

Jalandhar nodded. "Your Majesty, one reason why we failed the last mission in Indonesia, apart from the unexpected hidden force of the Dutch which messed things up at the last moment, was communication."

"I had to monitor the situation of rebellions and operations in other Southeast Asian countries simultaneously, so I couldn't keep my full attention on Indonesia."

"It was the same with Jaideep. Even though he only had the intelligence network of Indonesia to handle, the length of Indonesia proved too much for one person to manage without sound communication channels like we have here in the mainland."

"Even though he was able to come up with victories in Sumatra and Jakarta, he simply couldn't handle things properly in Malacca."

"In the end, everything was ruined because of one single failure." Jalandhar looked at Vijay with a sincere expression. "I believe for the operation this time, at least two senior intelligence agents should take charge," he said resolutely.

Vijay cracked his knuckles in contemplation, then he finally nodded. "It is a good suggestion. Do you have a candidate for the second senior intelligence agent?" he asked

"I have thought about it, Your Majesty. I feel like Niranjan could do the job," Jalandhar responded. "He has a lot of experience in his line of work, and most importantly, he ran the successful anti-colonial operation in the Philippines."

"Niranjan is currently the Director of the Bharatiya External Pragya, Philippines branch, but I feel like his expertise is wasted in an office, so I would request you to allow me to recruit him."

Vijay felt that it was all right. "It's a good choice. If Niranjan has no problem with getting on the frontline once again, you can recruit him."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. I will not let you down," Jalandhar smiled and repeatedly thanked Vijay in gratitude.

Jalandhar Keshav immediately went back to his operations base in Andaman Islands and ordered the initiation of Protocol 43, a protocol designed to rebuild the intelligence network according to certain procedures devised by the Research and Analysis Wing of Bharatiya External Pragya under the command of Director Roshan and Deputy Directors Jalandhar Keshav and Harpreet Singh Ghill.

---

Bidar, underground research facility of the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences

"Yesss!"

"Success!!!"

Manoj Reddy jumped up in joy with a big smile on his face; his personal research was a great success, its practicality more amazing than he could have ever imagined. Around him were a couple of researchers celebrating happily along with him, holding each other by the shoulders and jumping around.

A month ago, His Majesty had given him the task of recreating the Dutch sea bomb and improving it according to his requirements.

One of the improvements His Majesty suggested was to replace the firing mechanism from a crude design to a flintlock design using mercury fulminate as a primer. However, he did not have much research in mercury, so he had to start from the ground up.